Missy May I am anti-suffering. In this proverbial "war" between anti/pro slaughter you need to remember the basic rule of life. Be careful what battles you pick. Even though ALL meat based protein takes far more $$$ to create, has far more of an impact on environment, and takes far more energy to produce than plant based protein...people will always eat meat...be it cow, chicken, goat, pig or unfortunately horse...because they want too. The thought to me is personally sickening to think of BUT I am well aware that is a battle you will never win. Right now my main concern is that animals that do find themselves unwanted and at the slaughter houses be treated as humanely and ethical as possible to minimize the suffering they must endure before their lives are ended. I think we have to focus on that issue FIRST because at this point it truly is the only thing we can actually do to "help" them. Are we going to end slaughter of horses for human/pet consumption...no. Instead of saying all or nothing we have to come to the table and say it's going to happen so whats the most efficient and humane way it can happen and work from there...PLUS educate, and promote the idea of responsible horse ownership to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. You will never see a change in the slaughter #s unless we make a change in the reasons they end up there. And the change is there needs to be more proactive responsibility by horse owners. IF and when people start doing that...you will see a drop in horses sent to slaughter...small baby steps towards lowering the numbers sent.

I will relate this to sport hunting of deer and other wild game to clarify. I could never take an animals life. Never. Yet every deer season men and women spend outrageous amounts of money to go and get a deer. I would never personally be able to shoot a deer...I can't eat deer meat...in fact I am a vegetarian...so I don't eat any meat. But in a rough form deer hunting is kinda like feild slaughtering if that makes sense. A good hunter knows exactly where to shoot the deer in order to drop it instantly...the hunter aproaches and dispatches any life left in the animal quickly and it is over. They then dress it and take it home. Now you know there are bad hunters too...the ones that go out and shoot anything that moves in the bush, they do not take care to aim properly, to them it is more the thrill of killing something I believe. They are not concerned about the animals suffering and due not view the life they are taking as anything important. They are often the wasteful hunters like the one who shot a buck out back of my property and took just the tenderloin and left the rest of the carcass for the coyotes. Deer hunting is always going to happen. The facts are people will never stop this practice and unfortunately for the deer we have pretty much taken over what was once their lands and they now find themselves too many for what they have so it is necessary to prevent diseases, car accidents, and other ailments to their population and our ours. Horse slaughter right now is like that. They are culling the excess...and we have went over all of that unneccessary excess many times already in this thread. The ONLY thing we can hope for and fight for is that the person doing the slaughtering is like the first hunter. One that takes the life quickly and effeciently and shows compassion for the animal. I don't like it. I hate it...I hate that ANY horse has to die. But the facts are that right now some do...I just want them to die in a humane way.

Missy May I am anti-suffering. In this proverbial "war" between anti/pro slaughter you need to remember the basic rule of life. Be careful what battles you pick. Even though ALL meat based protein takes far more $$$ to create, has far more of an impact on environment, and takes far more energy to produce than plant based protein...people will always eat meat...be it cow, chicken, goat, pig or unfortunately horse...because they want too. The thought to me is personally sickening to think of BUT I am well aware that is a battle you will never win. Right now my main concern is that animals that do find themselves unwanted and at the slaughter houses be treated as humanely and ethical as possible to minimize the suffering they must endure before their lives are ended. I think we have to focus on that issue FIRST because at this point it truly is the only thing we can actually do to "help" them. Are we going to end slaughter of horses for human/pet consumption...no. Instead of saying all or nothing we have to come to the table and say it's going to happen so whats the most efficient and humane way it can happen and work from there...PLUS educate, and promote the idea of responsible horse ownership to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. You will never see a change in the slaughter #s unless we make a change in the reasons they end up there. And the change is there needs to be more proactive responsibility by horse owners. IF and when people start doing that...you will see a drop in horses sent to slaughter...small baby steps towards lowering the numbers sent.

I agree w you herd, 100%. I am already resigned to the fact it cannot be stopped. My main issue is prevention...as in, preventing unwanted horses from being "created" which will necessarily decrease needless slaughter - in the future. That in itself is a "compromise" with "all or nothing". I wasn't actually advocating vegetarianism for all or cannibalism. :) It was a ill-faited attempt at pointing out that excess meat is not a "justification" to continue w status quo....assuming one "draws the line" somewhere (i.e., no to human meat). Ah, it isn't the first time one of my "attempts" was misunderstood. You're point is well taken. Thank you.

Because Lizzy some horses are in pain and are unsaleable and un adoptable. It is irresponsible to pawn your problem horse off to some one else. Sometimes the kindest thing is a big bucket of grain and a bullet..................

Missy, I'm not sure where you think anyone is advocating equine slaughter 'just because'. If there wasn't a market for it, it wouldn't exist.

All of those civilizations and cultures you mentioned ate horses. It's only been a very recent phenomenon that certain people have decided that horses are 'more special' than any other meat animal, and use that excuse to try and infringe on other peoples' rights.

Your argument about eating people, and that Westernized civilizations don't eat horse because of their cultural values was wrong on far too many levels, which makes you appear as woefully uneducated on the topic. I can't take someone seriously who doesn't use rational, factual arguments.

Herdbound is correct; eating meat isn't going to stop regardless of how many hysterical, emotional, badly thought out arguments people throw out there. For every person who sees horses as fur people, there will be 10 others who see them for what they really are; livestock.

I have never met anyone, be they anti or pro, who advocates torture. Death isn't pretty in whatever form it takes, but my concern is for the animals and their welfare BEFORE they get dead, not what's done with the carcass afterwards.Posted via Mobile Device

It was a ill-faited attempt at pointing out that excess meat is not a "justification" to continue w status quo....assuming one "draws the line" somewhere (i.e., no to human meat). Ah, it isn't the first time one of my "attempts" was misunderstood. You're point is well taken. Thank you.

It does have to do with culture as well. People of other cultures find it acceptable to eat dogs. You can buy skewered rats in some cultures on the street just like we in the US can buy hotdogs. People in some cultures eat monkeys...I think it is disgusting, personally. But people in India would find pulling through a McDonalds and ordering a double cheeseburger not only disgusting but sacrilegious...yet we in the US do it often daily. I understand completely where you are coming from. I am not so bad as to believe in "fur people" ;) I see them as animals - but in scientific classifications human beings are animals too. We are different than other animals because we have the capability to do deductive reasoning, advanced problem solving and come equipped with "emotions" that other animals may not possess. Do I think this makes us better? No. I think that it places more responsibility on us to use our "advanced" minds to treat other living creatures in a humane & ethical way instead of using it to their demises.

Missy, I'm not sure where you think anyone is advocating equine slaughter 'just because'. If there wasn't a market for it, it wouldn't exist.

All of those civilizations and cultures you mentioned ate horses. It's only been a very recent phenomenon that certain people have decided that horses are 'more special' than any other meat animal, and use that excuse to try and infringe on other peoples' rights.

Your argument about eating people, and that Westernized civilizations don't eat horse because of their cultural values was wrong on far too many levels, which makes you appear as woefully uneducated on the topic. I can't take someone seriously who doesn't use rational, factual arguments.

Herdbound is correct; eating meat isn't going to stop regardless of how many hysterical, emotional, badly thought out arguments people throw out there. For every person who sees horses as fur people, there will be 10 others who see them for what they really are; livestock.

I have never met anyone, be they anti or pro, who advocates torture. Death isn't pretty in whatever form it takes, but my concern is for the animals and their welfare BEFORE they get dead, not what's done with the carcass afterwards.Posted via Mobile Device

Well, forgive my ignorance, but attacking one's education is not a factual argument style I am familiar with. Implying I am hysterical, emotional and unable to present a "thought out argument" on the basis I posed a philosophical question is equally foreign to me...again, forgive my ignorance.... I am not accustome to engaging in conversations with such superior intellect.
At the extreme risk of embarrassing myself, as you put it, and showing my ignorance of history, I must say, industrialization, mechanization and mass transport changed things for the horse just a teeny tiny bit starting around the late 1800's in the US. Horses went from being very valuable methods of transport and work (which acted as an effective control of their breeding) to being mostly for pleasure. The very mechanized machinery that replaced them in the fields meant commodities were more abundant than ever - and cheap. Which meant, people could raise more horses! I realize this is an over-simplification, and probably never actually happened b/c I am so ignorant...but lets just throw the poor girl a crumb and say...yeah, it happened. Horses were then increasingly bred WILLY NILLY. That is what I have a problem with...completely preventable breeding of unwanted undesirable stock.
Yes, many cultures here and there ate horses. Mongols and icelanders being examples of cultures intimately involved w the horse...but they slaughtered out of what they deemed necessary and they practice(d) controlled breeding...and they could not purchase vast quantities of hay on the futures market or at the local feed store. So, today's horse slaughter in the US and like examples are not comparable - to the point, they are irrelevent.
Historically speaking on this very thread, I have not advocated NO slaughter, I have advocated contolled breeding by license or some other regulatory method. None of which would have any effect on the freedoms of responsible people wanting to breed sire "x" to dam "y" for a specific reason. It would not eliminate slaughter, it would reduce the number of horses that are unnecessarily slaughtered.
Demand is not an argument I find compelling. Heroin is one of the most stable commodities in the US, hence it is in demand. There is a huge demand for human transplant organs...should we not infringe on people's "freedoms" to regulate the sale of same? There is a demand for things unspeakable...should demand for them prohibit laws against the sale of them? I don't know, I am looking to your superior intellect and factual based well though out argument for the answer. I personally do not think "demand" is a good enough excuse to not regulate horse "production" (i.e., preventing, to the degree possible, unwanted and undesirable stock).
People worry and worry about losing their "freedoms"...with the commodities exhange modernization act...you can consider them - gone. No riots over that. But regulated equine breeding...whoa, that is just to much!

There is just as much horse sense as ever, but the horses have most of it.

Horse meat was available in small meat markets when I was a kid and even in some of the big stores. It was common during and after WW II and was available in many stores until the mid 60s. It was eaten everywhere before WW II.

The first 'rescues' I saved and trained in the 60s, I rescued from the Columbine Packing Company located on the east side of Denver. Yes, I saw them killed (no big deal and not abusive) and paid the invoice ticket price plus $10.00 for the ones I bought and tried. Most cost between $50.00 and $75.00. Some made good horses and some had to go back to Columbine. [If you're familiar with Denver, it was located on North Havana when that was out in the country.]

The Crown Prince Pet Food Company located in North Platte, Nebraska was a big horse buyer in the 60s and 70s.

There was a small slaughter house that operated in Rush Springs, Oklahoma until 1983 or 1984. It processed horses for zoo meat and greyhound meat. They sold meat for people until the early 70s when inspection became too hard to achieve for a small packer.

There are many Americans now of Asian and Eastern European origin that will buy it here now if it was available. 'We' don't eat a lot of goat meat either, but it is the most commonly eaten meat in the World -- more than chicken, pork or beef.

No one should be so closed minded as to think that the world revolves around their beliefs. Horses are livestock. That does not mean that some individuals will not see them and treat them as pets, but at the end of the day, they are still hoofed animals raised as livestock by most of the World.

To compare eating a class of livestock that one personally does not want to eat to cannibalism is pretty far out there -- kind of like giving them human emotions and 'rights'. No one is saying that anybody HAS to eat their horse or send it to slaughter. It is just not their right to tell others what they can eat or do with their horse that THEY OWN.

I am not so bad as to believe in "fur people" ;) I see them as animals - but in scientific classifications human beings are animals too. We are different than other animals because we have the capability to do deductive reasoning, advanced problem solving and come equipped with "emotions" that other animals may not possess.

I don't believe in "fur people", haha. But until proven otherwise, I believe many other species capable of "human level" deductive reasoning, advanced problem solving, etc.,. I have no "measurable irrefutable" proof to the contrary. But, it is only accepted as an unfounded "belief" in current thinking, not simply as an "unknown" - as it should be IMHO. The IQ of parrots, for example, has not changed - our understanding and effort to measure it -has. The "accepted" intelligence of parrots went from "limited bird brain intelligence" to highly intelligent in a few decades. I believe, if something has not been and cannot be accurately measured by current known methods...then it cannot be quantified. When I am not getting my point accross to a horse, I think, "if i were in your body, and the human spoke russian, how could they communicate 'this' to me such that I got it?" My "answer" very often works...and it requires that I, in effect, assumed a horse to be my intellectual equal...which could mean my IQ is "as low" as a horse's IQ is assumed to be. :) It is proof of nothing, mind you...I am just saying "my belief" frees me from "not believing"...and it works.
But I don't want to be catagorized as a fur people person!!! Just...odd, maybe.

I agree just because their intelligence is "different" than ours does not mean that it is less or more...it is just different. They do seem to be intelligent in my opinion there was just an outstanding thread done on this by Cherie on the forum. I do believe that even though they may not be able to sit down and do algebra they are very capable of learning, remembering, and problem solving. I have had a few horses figure out ways to open doors, untie ropes, beat fencing attempts ect. So they had to do some sort of deductive reasoning and planning. With all that said there is one thing I am sure of they do have the ability to feel pain & experience stress & anxiety. Both pain and anxiety are unpleasant experiences for any life form...if we can spare them that...why wouldn't we?

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